The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Monday February 19 2007

The business built up by Momofuku Ando is now headed by his son Koki, not Kiko, Ando.

Momofuku Ando, who has died aged 96, ate chicken ramen every day. Like them or not, the single-portion version, called Pot Noodles in Britain, and Cup Noodles in the US and elsewhere, has supplied quick and easy feeding for more people than might admit to it.

Ando was born in Taiwan when it was still part of the Japanese empire. He was an ethnic Chinese, and did not obtain Japanese citizenship until after the second world war. His parents died when he was still an infant, and he was brought up by grandparents who ran a fabric shop. While his first steps in wealth creation were a textile trading company in Taipei, he moved to Japan in 1933 to study economics at university in Kyoto and to pursue business interests in nearby Osaka.

His early commercial ventures might be described as both various and chancy: selling textiles, prefabricated housing, magic lantern projectors and even running a school are all listed by him in his 2002 autobiography How I Invented Magic Noodles.

Avoiding any military service, he served a prison sentence for tax evasion in 1948, and came close to bankruptcy through involvement in a failed credit union. Nothing if not determined, he emerged to found the predecessor of his giant corporation Nissin Food Products in the same year, producing salt.

His invention of "magic noodles" must be seen in the context of postwar Japan. With the economy in ruins, and a massive reconstruction programme under way, Japan suffered severe imbalances in food supply. The usual staple, rice, was scarce, but there was plenty of wheat, courtesy of the victorious US. Wheat could be consumed as bread (not then Japan's favourite food), or noodles. Hence, perhaps, the immense queues outside noodle shops which Ando observed in the early 1950s and which was the spur to his developing a noodle that was quick to prepare.

There are three sorts of noodle in Japan: soba noodles, made from buckwheat flour; udon noodles - large, thick fresh wheat noodles; and ramen, which are Chinese-style thin noodles. In 1958, Ando launched a precooked, preflavoured dehydrated ramen noodle on to the market as Chikin (chicken) Ramen, sold in a cellophane pack. After cooking, the noodles had been "watered" with chicken soup, seasoned with plenty of monosodium glutamate, then fried in palm oil to dehydrate them. Three minutes in boiling water and they were ready to eat at home. Though they were much pricier than the fresh noodles then available, good first-year sales in the Osaka region warranted further investment. Soon the noodle-shop queues were a dim memory.

To a market that adored innovation and commercial chutzpah, and was for the first time embracing the consumer-driven elysium fostered by television and advertising, the instant noodle seemed food of the gods. Ando's Nissin Food Products soon had plenty of competitors, so that a typical Japanese supermarket had aisles saturated with choice. Myojo Foods, for example, developed an instant noodle with the flavouring packed separately; other companies have pioneered regional recipes; and Nissin itself has vastly extended its product range.

It is estimated that the average Japanese person eats 45 portions of instant ramen a year. Ando's most brilliant move was to package it in individual portions. After setting up the US operation in 1970, he saw his new customers often tipping a serving into a cup and pouring boiling water on to it for a ready-made snack. Taking advantage of new technology in the production of thin, heat-proof styrofoam, he converted this principle into a manufactured packaged item - in the US a cup, in Japan a bowl. The Nissin trademark is Cup Noodles; in Britain, the same process was developed by Golden Wonder and marketed as Pot Noodles from 1979.

In its founder's lifetime, Nissin went from strength to strength, opening 29 subsidiaries in 11 countries. He devoted considerable effort to national affairs, founding the Instant Food Industry Association in 1964, and was behind the International Ramen Manufacturers' Association. There is an Instant Ramen museum in Ikeda, near Osaka, named after him.

Ando stepped down from the company chairmanship in 2005, leaving his son Koki as president. Ando is survived by his wife, Masako, two sons and a daughter.